Adaptive typography is a cornerstone of modern user interface design, especially in Google’s Material 3 (M3) Expressive design system. Whether you’re developing for Android or the web, adaptive typography ensures your text scales dynamically to maintain readability and visual harmony across devices. This guide will walk you through implementing adaptive typography using M3 Expressive, with practical steps tailored for developers and designers.
What is Adaptive Typography?
Adaptive typography refers to the practice of adjusting font sizes, weights, and spacing based on screen size, resolution, and user preferences. It enhances accessibility and improves the overall user experience by ensuring that text remains legible and aesthetically pleasing regardless of the device being used .
In M3 Expressive, this concept is elevated through features like variable fonts—particularly Roboto Flex, which allows for dynamic adjustments to size, weight, and optical illusions such as width and slant . These capabilities make it easier than ever to create designs that respond fluidly to different contexts.
Step 1: Understand the Typography System in M3 Expressive
Material 3 introduces a refined typographic scale designed to work seamlessly with its color and component systems. The new system emphasizes flexibility and expressiveness, offering a simpler yet more versatile set of type styles compared to previous versions . To begin, familiarize yourself with the available text styles—such as headline, title, body, and label—and how they function within the M3 framework.
Each style includes predefined properties like font size, line height, and letter spacing, but these can be customized depending on your application’s needs. For example, you might adjust the headlineMedium style to better fit your brand voice while still adhering to accessibility standards.
Step 2: Implement Variable Fonts Like Roboto Flex
One of the standout features of M3 Expressive is its support for variable fonts, particularly Roboto Flex. Unlike traditional static fonts, variable fonts allow you to manipulate multiple attributes along continuous axes, including weight, width, and even optical size . This means you can define a single font family that adapts intelligently across different UI states.
To implement Roboto Flex:
- Import the font into your project using CSS or Android resources.
- Define font variations via CSS
font-variation-settingsor Android’sFontFamily. - Apply the font to relevant text components, ensuring consistency across your app or website.
This approach reduces the number of font files needed while enabling fine-grained control over how text appears under varying conditions.
Step 3: Leverage Dynamic Color and Contrast Settings
Typography doesn’t exist in isolation—it must work harmoniously with other design elements, especially color. In M3 Expressive, typography integrates closely with the expanded color system, which uses deeper tonal palettes and a wider token set to ensure sufficient contrast and readability .
When designing your layout, use M3’s built-in color tokens to assign text colors dynamically. This helps maintain legibility when switching between light and dark themes or adapting to high-contrast modes. Tools like Webflow already support MD3’s integrated color and typography workflows, making it easier to preview and refine your choices .
Step 4: Test Across Devices and Contexts
Even with a robust system like M3 Expressive, testing is crucial. Use browser developer tools or Android Studio’s layout inspector to simulate various screen sizes and resolutions. Ensure that your adaptive typography behaves as expected—text should resize smoothly without breaking layouts or becoming illegible.
Also, consider user preferences such as increased text size for accessibility. M3’s adaptive typography supports system-level scaling, so test your implementation against these settings to confirm compliance with accessibility guidelines.
Step 5: Stay Updated with New Components and Tools
As part of the broader M3 Expressive update, Google continues to roll out new components and enhancements that simplify adaptive typography workflows. For instance, recent updates include pre-built UI kits with adaptive shape and motion support, allowing designers to apply expressive typography without requiring deep technical customization .
Staying current with these changes ensures you’re leveraging the latest tools to streamline development and enhance your designs.
By following these steps, you can effectively integrate adaptive typography into your M3 Expressive projects. With thoughtful implementation, your designs will not only look great but also offer an inclusive and responsive experience for all users.
